Gonzaga fans told to stop 'Brokeback Mountain' insult
Fans of Gonzaga University's men's basketball team have been asked to stop yelling "Brokeback Mountain" at opposing players during home games.
The reference to a recent movie about homosexual cowboys is an apparent insult that implies that an opposing player is gay, the Associated Press reported.
Fans of the Catholic university's basketball team, which is currently ranked No. 5 in the country, taunted a player from Saint Mary's College of California with a chant during a Feb. 7 home game, but faculty advisers for a Gonzaga sports booster group called the Kennel Club implored students to stop the chant before a nationally televised Feb. 11 game against Stanford University.
"We implore the students of the Kennel Club to show the nation this weekend what makes Gonzaga different," Kennel Club advisers David Lindsay and Aaron Hill wrote in a letter in the student newspaper, the Bulletin. "We challenge the students of the Kennel Club to exhibit the class, the creativeness and the competitive drive that has become a foundation of this great university."
A faculty member told the AP that the matter had been widely discussed by faculty and students. Several students have written to the Bulletin to decry homophobia and discrimination at Gonzaga.
New European institute to rival M.I.T.
The European Union presented plans last Wednesday for the creation of a rival to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Associated Press reported that the European Institute of Technology should be a "flagship of excellence in higher education, research and innovation," according to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
Barroso told the AP that the plans will be forwarded to EU governments and will be discussed at an EU summit next month. Member states will decide the location of the institution, which will be funded by member states, the EU budget and private businesses.
"It should be a location that enjoys a certain tradition and credit," Jan Figel, the EU's education commissioner, told the AP.
- Stu Woo
